


Promnesia

by gregwillray



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 18:55:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12563996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gregwillray/pseuds/gregwillray
Summary: When Red witnesses a building explode, a building that Elizabeth just entered, he's sure that she didn't make it. Not having the strength to witness her death again, he leaves before anyone can confirm. Dembe finds him with unexpected news a few weeks later.





	Promnesia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rories](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rories/gifts).



The smell that the blast left in its wake would plague him for the rest of his days. Every morning it would be the first thing he smelled as he wakes up. Dust and loss and earth and pain and smoke and longing and gas and. No Lizzy.

The old building was the perfect place for the sadistic torturer to base his operations. It was nondescript, on the edge of town but not in the middle of nowhere. It was dirty and had lots of rooms to hide the grizzly aftermaths of his crimes.

He didn’t want Elizabeth to lead the charge. But with five missing girls in the wind, he really couldn’t stop her. 

The last agent had barely cleared the threshold when the explosion had rocked the building. Glass had shattered from the hundreds of windows to land at his feet. The deathly silence that followed was only disturbed by the ringing in his ears and the persistent desperate voice in his head:  _no no no no no!_

He stood rooted to the spot for what felt like days, swaying, nauseous. But nobody came out. Only smoke poured from the building. Number 68 had taken another girl from this world. His girl.

He doesn’t recall deciding to move, or how fast he got to the car. He can barely remember where Dembe had parked. All he’d felt was the overwhelming, sucking, hollow in his chest. The last time she… He’d at least seen her, held her as she seemingly left this world.  _Don’t go. Please, don’t go_. But there was no such solace this time. His last image of her - seeing her looking reassuringly over her shoulder at him, and then nothing. And then she was gone.

He doesn’t pack anything, he doesn’t greet Dembe, he does not inform anyone on the task force. He just leaves. It takes him three days to track down number 68. He kills 18 people in that time, some with his gun, some with his knife, most with his hands. It takes him 7 hours to kill the blacklister, to dismember him, piece by piece, to make him feel the agony that flows through his very being. He’s sure he didn’t come close. He leaves the knife sticking out of his heart for the FBI to find. Anonymous tip left for Agent Donald Ressler.

He leaves again. Not to Cape May this time, but to the mountains. Where the weather might match the iciness in his heart, perhaps even overcome it.

The nights pass in agony. Scotch is his only companion and it leaves him restless, unable to sleep. Tossing, and turning, and sweating, and swearing, and crying. Images of her dying over and over and over. Slumped in the chair at the Stewmaker’s cabin, the victim of a stray bullet, in the ambulance, with him clawing at her, unable to do anything but watch as the world takes away the one good thing. His life, his heart. The silent cavern of that building. Collapsing.

During the day he talks to her, tells her how much he loves her and wants her and needs her. Staring out of the kitchen window at the vast, white abyss he imagines her hearing him. Smiling at him as she did before walking straight to her death. He doesn’t know how to live like this. His heart feels misshapen. 

The days become one long blur of tears and ache and longing. He doesn’t know how long he’s there for. His clothes smell terrible and his beard is longer than it has been in years. His steady supply of scotch is running out. She’s there with him every day, and he doesn’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse.

When he opens the door to Dembe, he’s sure he must be dreaming. The man looks cold and murderous and he doesn’t know what to tell him. 

He doesn’t have time to ruminate on the appropriate words to apologise in before Dembe is telling him all sorts of stories. He thinks he must be lying to him, trying to get him to go back with him. To finish the blacklist with him but he can’t.  _Dembe. I can’t._

Dembe tells him that he doesn’t understand. That she lives. That he was fooled, yet again. This time not by the people he loved and trusted, but by his own heart and paranoia. Dembe tells him she’s alive and he walks out into the snow without hesitation. 

On the plane he calls every member on the taskforce to confirm what Dembe is telling him. He asks all of them the same questions, listening intently to their answers, making sure it’s the truth and not some rehearsed drivel in order to get him back. He thinks he believes them. Aram had cried in relief on the phone.

He’s taken to an apartment he does not recognise, but Dembe assures him its safe. _It has all been taken care of, my friend._  The house is quiet, and it feels like he’s back there, outside that old building, waiting for any sight of her, suffocating in her absence. 

She’s in the kitchen. Right there in front of him and he knows she’s real because she’s broken and imperfect, a crutch resting perilously on the counter next to where she’s making eggs. A bandage stretching down her neck and disappearing under the dress shirt she’s wearing.

And like before, he doesn’t know how he gets there, all he knows is her back pressed to his chest, his face in her hair, his arms around her - feeling her breathing and her heartbeat against his palm and her talking. Oh, she’s talking to him.  _Oh God, Red? Red, ow, hi, please, ouch. You have to let me go._

So he does, quickly, snatching his hands back, and stepping away from her. Will he never stop hurting her? But she’s already on her way to him, and she’s slow, the crutch under her arm helping her limp along, a bruise on her forehead, and one to match on her jaw. She’s smiling, so much better than the last time he saw her, and this time he stays still, holds his arms out until she folds herself into him. Softly, softly. And he cradles her, fingertips light on her skin, kissing her head. Softly, softly. 

There are words of apology, too many to count, in the few days that follow. There’s a single kiss, when she’s on the brink of sleep, two days after he arrives. She whispers that she’s missed him and he tells her she has no idea and she tips his chin down to her and catches his bottom lip so perfectly between hers that his breath stutters in his throat for the entire duration of the kiss. 

He helps her dress in the mornings, a fresh dress shirt for each day. Standing behind her with his arms around her, just like that day he found her here, to help button the shirt. A hairline fracture on her shoulder preventing her from doing it property herself. When she tells him that  _Oh Dembe helped before you got here,_ he tries not to let the jealousy overtake his bruised and battered heart, instead thanking him the next time he visits. 

He helps with her hair, trying out a different style every time. She likes his braids the most, watching him intently in the mirror, perhaps in hope of copying him one day when he’s not there to assist. She needs to keep her hair out of her face so they can change the dressing on her neck every morning, but he also suspects that she likes the feeling of his hands in her hair - having seen the goosebumps on her neck and shoulders, and the way she’ll close her eyes sometimes as he’s brushing it. He leaves a kiss on top of her head every morning to let her know he’s done.

He helps with the food and she’s grateful, always insisting on drying the dishes that he washes. 

He rubs and strokes and massages the impressions the explosion left on her skin. Tracing the scars with a fingertip, palming the bruises on her legs, rubbing the small of her back.  _You always know how to make me feel better._

He never asks how she survives. He doesn’t want either of them to relive that day, preferring instead to tug her a little bit closer into his side, keeping her there while he can.

He almost misses it. He’s gently draping the soft material of the button up over her shoulders, marveling at her soft skin, the way it looks in contrast with the light blue material. It’s when he brushes her hair aside with his hand that he notices the angry red peeking out from under the soon to be changed bandage. He asks if she’s been taking her antibiotics as she should and she says  _yes Red, you’re there to make sure, every time_  and he’s worried.

The doctor tells her to take it easy, and sends them on their way with another, stronger prescription but he’s still worried.

He fluffs her pillows and makes her tea to take the antibiotics with. He’s seen infection take down larger men than her. He rubs her feet and refuses to leave her out of his sight, hiring a woman to cook and clean for them. He reads to her with her feet in his lap, they watch movies with her head on his chest. They sleep, and he holds her. Softly, softly. 

The infection disappears but not his worry. It seems like every day that passes with her like this seems too good to be true. As if he’s going to jerk awake in that cabin and be alone and without her again. She can sense it, he knows she can. She looks at him with those eyes as if she knows every single thing he’s ever thought. But she can’t possibly–

He’s doing her hair in a daze when she asks him to look at her, slips out of his grasp and turns to face him, knees cradled between his own. She tells him that he seems far away from here, from her. That she wants him back. She takes his hands.

He tells her that he’s right here with her, every step of the way. This is where he wants to be. 

She tells him that she knows that, that he’s been incredible, that she never really wants to leave this space they’ve carved out for themselves. 

He tells her that he feels the same, that he can hardly bear to leave this all behind, and he swallows thickly and she notices.

She cups his face and kisses him just as sweetly as she did that night those few weeks ago. He doesn’t freeze this time, and allows himself to be taken by her. His eyes close, eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks and he lets himself feel her. This is real, nothing he could make up could ever feel this good. The soft skin of her thighs under his hands, the sighs and the moans washing over him, soothing him, her impossibly perfect lips kissing him and kissing him and kissing him.

She tells him that she loves him. That she’s here. That she’s not leaving. 

He says  _I love you. I’m here. I’m not leaving._

And he doesn’t. And she doesn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> This was in reaction to a general prompt by elizabethkween on tumblr.
> 
> http://elizabethkween.tumblr.com/post/166902447329/lizzington-prompt-free-to-a-good-home-red-thinks


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